


Six Ways to Keep on Giving When You Have Nothing Left

by kindaquirky



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: American decadence, Based on a Tumblr Post, Gen, Sam Wilson is a Gift, Sam and Darcy broship, and deserves better than us, no regrets
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-31
Updated: 2015-01-31
Packaged: 2018-03-09 19:19:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,213
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3261383
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kindaquirky/pseuds/kindaquirky
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's not that Sam hated it actively. Every once in a while though, he thinks about what would have happened if he had sent Natasha and Steve off with a pat on the back and his prayers. </p><p>A story told through exhaustion, Snapchats, and internet articles.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Six Ways to Keep on Giving When You Have Nothing Left

It's not that Sam consciously hates it. Most times, he doesn't even unconsciously hate it. He's always been the type of person to give it his all. Whether it was for himself or others, he always followed the motto go big or go home. Natasha had told him that he should cross-stitch that onto a pillow it was so beautiful, after which he proceeded to smack her with a hand towel on one of the occasions she had taken to using his home as her very own safe house.

But it was true. He went all in for the people around him and tried to do the same for himself. When he wanted to go to medical school but his family just couldn't afford it, well then the Air Force could make him para-rescue and pay for that down the road. When that didn't work out like he thought it would, Sam rolled with it. He was malleable, able to do what he needed to. When he lost Riley and had to learn how to breath again, had to learn how to tell the difference between a car door slamming and the sound of a body hitting the ground, he took what he knew had been in him, and did what he could to help other vets and himself. If the only way to do that was to face his own demons, find his own faults and learn the difference between his nightmares and reality, then so be it.

He was a giver, Sam's mother said, with a small smile and a hand running over his hair. If that was the one thing people remembered about him, Sam figured it wasn't the worst thing a person could ask for.

So it's not that he hated it actively. Every once in a while though, he thinks about what would have happened if he had sent Natasha and Steve off with a pat on the back and his prayers.

Less nightmares, he figured. He couldn't look at the new wings for weeks after receiving them, feeling the sharp tug when they were ripped apart, the rushing of the air when he was free falling, praying his shoot worked, vividly remembering Riley's never opening. Even when Sam went with Steve, had learned more about the man Bucky Barnes had been, the sharp, hot pain from the bruises mapping his back didn't stop. They didn't stop until long after Barnes was back slowly integrating into a world he should never have lived to see. The pain stopped for the most part, and the nightmares became just a few more in his rotation, a few more to talk about with his group and show that they were all growing, learning, and how setbacks should never let them stop moving forward in their lives. Because Sam was a giver, and if he had to give his own fears words in the daylight to help the group around him learn how to breathe again, then he would. He always would.

There would also be far less midnight wake up calls from people he never saw outside of life-shattering situations. The first had been Natasha, once they had Barnes in the nice, secured facility in New York. She came back to his doorstep, slunk in and proceeded to raid his fridge.

“Second dinner? Are you into that sort of thing?” she had asked, pulling out a pan and telling him she liked her grilled cheese more on the burnt side. She had been gone in the morning, pan cleaned from the night before but dishes unwashed. He didn't see her again for three months.

The next had been Clint, who he had met in passing the night they had brought Barnes in, a mere name and nod in each others direction.

“Natasha said you were good for an overnight stay if people were trying to kill you,” he said, scuffed and dirty, looking nonchalant on the mat Sam's aunt had given him as a housewarming present.

“How many people are trying to kill you?”

“Numbers are merely a way of boxing ourselves in and forcing us conform to an idea created thousands of years ago.”

“So, that many?” Sam asked, opening the door farther and letting Clint in.

“I'm not one for details. Shower?”

Clint left the dirty towel on the floor and a Post-It with a smiley face on his coffee table.

 

Sam tried to get use to them rotating in and out of his life. One night after he and Pepper had fought, Tony arrived and cataloged everything in Sam's home that needed upgrades, including the foundations. Stark left with a wave tossed over his shoulder when Happy called with the all clear. Steve came over when being around Barnes 24/7 just became too overwhelming and, though he never took Sam up on his offer to join the others down at the VA, Steve had no problem unloading highly detailed issues on Sam's couch and have Sam help him work through them until he could look at Barnes and see the present man again, not just his shadow. Thor comes to him once for aide in taking care of Loki who once again has decided to wreak havoc on a planet that has done nothing to him except exist. Sam took three deep breaths when all he wants to do is scream at them to take their family fights somewhere else. He reminds himself that if anyone spoke to his sister like that, no matter how angry they were with each other, he would definitely have to do something about that, and he's seen Thor with that hammer, and bites his tongue. Instead he exchanges annoyed glances and finally numbers with Darcy.

Clint and Natasha continue to be the worst house guests in existence. One day while finally cleaning out the gutters his neighbors have been giving annoyed glances at, Sam discovers that Clint has decided his home was the perfect place to store extra weaponry. Sam left them there, along with the extra widow bites on his mantle and knives that could be from either one of them taped under chairs and light fixtures. He makes a mental inventory so that when his niece visits he can completely clear out his once child friendly home. Natasha never does her own dishes, leaving them for Sam to soak and scrub out whatever he's made her even after the not-so-subtle remarks about how cooks don't clean. Clint leaves anything he no longer needs on Sam's floor, including a pair of dirty socks slipped under his couch. That at least got him a 'sorry bro' when Sam snapped the picture to Clint with flames drawn around them.

Bruce is the only one who doesn't invade his home on a regular basis, instead inviting him to a new restaurant every time he's in D.C. They had brunch at a Peruvian place once, and dinner at a 24 hour Ethiopian place, forty-five minutes outside of city but worth it all the same. Instead of carrying the burden of cleaning up the mess, Bruce forces him to carry the conversation, rarely offering his own insight, making Sam feel as if instead of meals with a friend, these are meals with someone trying to be friendly because others have forced him (mainly Tony). Later, Darcy tells him she had no idea, as she's never met half of these schmucks, and snaps him a picture of Thor bending over, which he unashamedly screenshots.

Sam has come home more than once to find that there has been a stray Avenger taking up residence in his home. After a long weekend of working with the local VA hospital and the newly stateside vets, he opens his door to find the blanket Clint has claimed as him own scrunched on the floor and his leftover Thai gone. Once, after going to New York to have his wings calibrated by Tony who made Sam come to him because he was to busy to fly down, Sam finds a stack of dishes in his sink and a load of laundry left to wrinkle in the dryer. He calls Natasha, but the number is disconnected. The next time he sees her she's dirty and bloody and he doesn't have it in him to tell her off when he's busy putting her shoulder back in its socket.

It's never a constant dislike, because the only time he thinks about it is once they're gone, crisis averted and house left to be cleaned.

What it is, is exhausting, and Sam is not paid enough by the government to have to handle these people coming in and out of his life. He thinks about changing the locks, even looks up a locksmith to do it. All it gets Sam is a text from an unknown number asking if anyone tried to break in recently and could he pick up Frosted Flakes when he comes home.

“I'll don't think I'll get over how decadent even the breakfast food is here,” Natasha marvels over a bowel when he tries to inform her that friends do not go through each-other's computer history, making him laugh in the middle of his own argument.

Sam has always been a giver. His mother told him that with a smile and a hand running over his head. He's always given his all to a problem and tried to do his best. His mother never told him what to do when he ran out of himself to give.

He declines Bruce's next two invitations for lunch, and they stop coming and Sam breathes a sigh of relief at never needing to have that awkward conversation.

He turns his phone off for the rest of the weekend after Thor calls him to help out with Loki, since he's nearby and Steve was off the continent with Bucky, still rooting out Hydra bases. Yes, Thor tells him, Loki is bad, but to be fair, once he wasn't half bad and who would expect him to kill his brother? 'Everyone' he can hear Darcy yelling. He goes, gets hurt again, and the nightmares take over again for a few nights. He turns it back on to two missed calls from Steve, asking if he's alright. There's also ten snaps from Darcy and Clint to him of random animals, landscapes, and one far too close up of Clint's eye.

He changes the locks one day. He gets three separate emails from Natasha with articles about passive-aggressiveness and lock picking techniques. He comes home to her dirty dishes, and a Post-It note stuck to his fridge of a face with angry eyebrows.

He doesn't pick up the weekly phone call from Steve, accidentally misses lunch once, tells Steve he's been busy at the VA when he comes over unannounced, tells him he's tired when Steve asks to come in, all big-eyed confusion. Sam cancels with Tony multiple times, tells him he's taking on a more active role at the clinic again, finishing up his psychology classes. Tony threatens to take the wings back, and Sam tells him he can have them over his dead body.

He removes Clint from his snapchat friends and gets a text of 'dafuq' and close up of one of Clint's eyebrows furrowed. Darcy sends him a picture of Jane's new cat, and he sends one back of his neighbors shaved poodle. Later that week he gets a snap of Jane, Thor and Professor Selvig, their backs to her, across a room pouring over a map that says 'I get it'.

He sends her an old picture of him and Riley and says 'Me too'.

 

Steve doesn't stop calling, and Sam doesn't stop answering. He nods along when Steve speaks, and Sam agrees to the small outings with Steve and Bucky, never sure if he's there as a friend oras back up for a man that still has issues telling the difference between a mission and a grocery store trip. 'To be fair,' Darcy texts him, 'have you been to Whole Foods on a Saturday? They're basically the same.'

She snaps him a picture of her new poli-sci degree 'Minors in physics and astronomy', it says. He snaps her a picture of George Washington University that says 'Masters y/y?'. He gets a pic of Jane crying and smiling.

He's not done giving, he knows. He knows it every time he leads a group or has a one-on-one at the hospital. He is, for the most part, done giving his all, when he comes home less and less to dirty dishes and Post-Its, puts the books he bought on sign-language on the top shelf.

Until months later, there's a layer of dust on them, his plates are always put away, and he notices he hasn't had to add post-its to his shopping list lately. Pepper has her assistant leave him messages on Tony's behalf, asking him to please make an appointment with R&D to continue their process. He goes through the correct channels, and turns down lunch, insisting he has a flight to catch.

He has dinner with the staff at the VA, takes part in the fantasy football league again, and takes over second base for the softball team halfway through the season. He gives what he can. He hands out stale coffee, good advice, and goes home to an empty home.

Darcy snaps him the front of her new apartment, a picture of her classes at NYU and texts him her address with a date to visit. They spend the day together, slightly lost most of the time, talking about classes. Darcy feels she brings a pretty different view to the room with her whole helping to stop an alien invasion. Sam tells her about the softball team and how his neighbor keeps shaving new designs into his poodle every few weeks. They glean quickly over Jane disappearing some days and coming back later, wearing flowing dresses and a glow no one else can give her, refusing to tell Darcy about it, or take her along just once. They glean over Sam listening to Steve but not always talking, so long as Steve is able to move forward in his life with Bucky, who to both their shock and joy continues to get just a little bet better every passing month.

The day is spent taking ugly pictures to send to family and friends, and Darcy pulling him to her new favorite haunts away from the tower that always seems to be just barely in their view. Darcy sighs on the subway and says Stark offered her a paid internship in his public relations office. Sam tells her the truth, no one turns down a paid internship, and if anyone can handle the public, it's her. She smiles, and leans farther into him. Sam makes her take another picture.

Sam gets home to his porch light on. He finds a fully stocked fridge with recipes of different Indian dishes and a new carousel of take-out menus from international restaurants. The mopping is done, and the laundry is folded and put away. The dishes have been put away according to size and color. A manual on his newly installed security system, courtesy of the Stark R&D department sits on his kitchen table along with his sign-language book opened to the page for apologies. His desk has three new stacks of post-its on varying colors and a print-out with 'The 10 Best Ways to Break Up with Someone', another of How to get rid of a Stage-Five Clinger' with a picture of a dunce cap hastily drawn at the bottom, and a price comparison on the best-rated dishwasher on the market.

He closes the book, and reads the manual, noticing the underlined portion telling him that it's been made to be thumbprint activated, with a fixed amount of one print for him to place in the memory. He puts the papers in the top drawer of his desk. He turns off the lights and sleeps off his trip.

He calls Bruce, and invites him over for Chicken Marsala, the only thing he really knows off the recipes. Bruce tells him about safe havens and the fear of scaring new people off, and Sam lets him make a dessert with the ingredients he bought. He snaps it to Darcy, who responds with one of a cloak like the one Jane so often comes home in with '???????'

Sam sits with Steve and talks. They talk about the softball league and the upcoming championship. They talk about Steve taking art classes, and Bucky learning how to whittle, of all things. Sam explains fantasy football, and Steve gets excited over getting farther through his list. They talk about nothing over a pitcher of beer and pickle chips. Bucky joins them halfway through and throws in stories about the people he's seen walking the few blocks to the bar.

Darcy snaps him Pepper pointing a finger, angry at Tony with 'If she kills him, I have to handle the press'. He snaps her a thumbs up.

He comes home to Syrniki once, and black bread another time, the dishes always cleaned and always put away. Print outs of 'How to Say You're Sorry Without Admitting Your Wrong 'cover his desk and Post-Its with hastily drawn faces stuck to Clint's yellow blanket, with a new blue one draped over his couch.

He buys a new, softer throw pillow that lives on his couch, and makes his grandmother's ambrosia. It is gone by the end of the week. He snaps Clint a picture of his sign-language book open to the page that taught him thank you and hangs a print-out on his fridge of 'The 23 Most Perfect Foods in the Universe'. Later that week Natasha is sitting at the table highlighting the entire page. She looks at him and shakes her head “Americans.” He starts her with the Mac-and-cheese burger. Clint snaps him a video of him jumping from one building to another with 'those stupid wings would be nice right now' written across.

Sam leaves him a five minute message yelling at him about not fucking Snapchatting when people are trying to kill him. He comes home two days later from a softball loss to Clint with his feet up on the coffee table telling him that life is about multitasking and if he can't find a little joy while people a trying to shoot him, what the hell was the point in life. Sam gets them a beer and complains about the shortstop that literally ruined their winning streak.

Bucky gives him a pillow with 'Go Big or Go Home -Sam Wilson' stitched on it with hydrangeas and gladiolus in opposing corners.

“Etsy is a weird place,” Bucky says solemnly as he hands it over one night after a group dinner at his and Steve's place. Sam laughs harder than he has in a while, making Bucky crack.

Sam puts it on the chair in his room. Finds it on the end of the couch some days, next to the folded blankets, or dead center of his bed, where he leaves it until he goes to sleep.

He never turns on the security system.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Syrniki is kind of like a cheese pancake, and black bread is a crusty, rich bread. And because I was informed that not everyone has had ambrosia, it a sweet fruit salad, with marshmallows, whipped topping, mandarin oranges, pineapple, and maraschino cherries (It's not for everyone).  
> [And this link exists](http://www.buzzfeed.com/emofly/most-perfect-foods-in-the-universe#.orqM42Qe8).


End file.
